Hewitt received a commitment on Sunday from 6-foot-8, 225-pound senior big man Erik Copes (Scout.com, No. 57), who was released from his letter-of-intent with George Washington and is eligible to play this season.

``I love Coach Hewitt and the campus,” Copes said on Sunday, hours after returning from a visit to the school. ``It’s a perfect situation for me. This team is good with or without me, but I’m going to try and make them better.”

Copes, a Philadelphia native, is ranked 57th in the Class of 2011 by Scout.com and ESPN has him at No. 55 in the nation.

``This was a tough situation for me because I grew up around GW,” Copes said. ``I had my mind set on going there and those guys are like family. I’m so close with Coach (Karl) Hobbs, but it was tough when he was fired.”

``Coach Lonergan and the new athletic director, Patrick Nero, were great people, but I really wanted to be coached by my uncle,” he added.

Copes initially chose George Washington primarily because his uncle, Roland Houston, was an assistant coach with the Colonials – and he said that wherever his uncle wound up getting a job, that’s where he was going.

Houston, after contemplating spots at other schools, decided to accept Hewitt’s offer to join the George Mason staff last week.

``I put pressure on him,” Copes admitted of his uncle. ``I called him right after I find out Coach (Karl) Hobbs was fired and asked him where we were going.”

Copes is from Philadelphia and will give George Mason, a team ranked in the FOXSports.com Preseason Top 25, a big man who can rebound and also block shots.

The Patriots lose leading scorer Cam Long. Luke Hancock also received his release and is looking at other schools, but hasn’t ruled out returning to George Mason.

Houston, a former star at Rhode Island, has been on the GW staff for the past seven seasons.

I remember begging Tom Seeley, who was the managing editor of FOXSports.com at the time, for a chance.

It was about six years ago. I was the national recruiting analyst with Scout.com, working alongside Dave Telep, but had always wanted to cover college basketball – and figured this was my best opportunity since FOX had just bought Scout.com.

Seeley gave me the opportunity to write a column a week that first year in 2005, then I somehow persuaded him to allow me to do both jobs for the next few years – covering both recruiting and college hoops full-time.

Now, after spending the past six years at FOXSports.com, I am moving on – to join CBSSports.com and work with who I consider the elite college basketball writer around, Gary Parrish.

This space will be no more one week from today, then I’ll take a couple weeks to recharge (pray for some much-needed sun in the Boston area) and get started at CBS on Monday, June 6.

It’s bittersweet because of the opportunity Seeley and FOXSports.com afforded to me what seems like an eternity ago. I’ve had terrific editors over the years who have trusted me and also given me the support to do what I needed – and wanted.

The NCAA’s ethics coalition met the last few days out in Indianapolis.

Sources said the following came out of the meetings:

- The group will likely propose a recruiting calendar that consists of bringing back a pair of weekends in April (four total days) and added in three long weekends in July (Thursday through Sunday) that total 12 days. That would give coaches 16 total days between the two periods.

- Coaches would finally be allowed to work with players in the summer. According to a source, it would probably be in the neighborhood of two hours a week for a six-week period.

- They tried to come up with a realistic definition of an “agent”. The NCAA understands what’s going on with the agents, but no one has an ideal solution just yet how to solve the problem.

- Access: It looks as though there will be a push for unlimited texting to recruits and also more access through phone calls. The phone calls won’t be unlimited, but there will be more allowed – and they also want them to be able to start at an earlier stage.

- Speaking of an earlier stage, it looks as though official visits will be moved up from the start of a recruits’ senior year to his junior season. This would intend to eliminate some of the shadiness that goes on with bringing kids to campus for unofficial visits.

He has been the head coach at Marquette the last three years and taken the program to three consecutive NCAA tournament appearances.

Williams is the beneficiary of the ultimate compliment from opposing coaches more than just about anyone else over the last few years: ``He gets kids to play so damn hard.”

But it’ll take a hefty paycheck to lure the 38-year-old Williams, who makes in excess of $2 million per year, or Pastner – another Texas native – to College Station.

Pastner makes just shy of $2 million per year, but he’s gone through what should be the two most challenging years of his career. John Calipari left him the scraps in his first season and last year he had a bunch of young kids that needed to grow up.

Now he’s got a team at Memphis filled with just about all of his own guys (except Wesley Witherspoon) and the young Tigers also have some experience under their belt.

The bottom line is that, in order to get one of these guys, the basketball coach may have to earn more than the football college. It sounds crazy in a football-driven program, but that’s the reality.

Mike Sherman makes a little less than $2 million per year.

If Texas A&M athletic director Bill Byrne doesn’t want to pony up quite so much for a hoops guy, there should be plenty of other options that can get it done:

- Fran Fraschilla, the former St. John’s, New Mexico and Manhattan coach (he has a 176-99 mark in nine seasons as a head coach), who has been an analyst for ESPN. Fraschilla may jump for the right opportunity – and this would be it, especially since he lives in the state and has ties to the Texas AAU programs and also is plugged in with international players.

- Johnny Jones, who has won 20-plus games for the past five years at North Texas. Jones has a team that is favored to win the Sun Belt this year, but he’s a guy that has been around the high-major ranks from his days as an assistant at LSU (from 1984-97).

- Tim Floyd – He’s only been at UTEP for one season, but Floyd is a guy who can obviously coach – and also recruit. He came out of the O.J. Mayo deal unscathed at USC and could wind up being in play.

- Brooks Thompson - Played two years at Texas A&M before transferring to Oklahoma State. His family is from there and he's turned around the program at UTSA. Thompson took over a program in disarray and went to the NCAA tournament this past season.

- Scott Spinelli - Turgeon's right-hand man and associate head coach certainly has done his part by landing guys like David Loubeau, Naji Hibbert and Khris Middleton.